Witch in the Wind

Excerpt

Witch in the Wind
Damian Serbu © 2024
All Rights Reserved

Chapter One

Survival

December 1692

Salem, Massachusetts

Alexander hid in the loft of the old barn despite the bitter cold blowing between the boards and swirling around him. He had traipsed through the snow from the nearby house to his secret hiding place in the hay to spend a few moments alone.

His body was undergoing major changes. Other boys went through transformations at this age too. Alexander learned as much from the gossip and stories he heard of expanding muscles, hair growing in new places, and voices deepening. Except those alterations hardly worried him.

He jumped when the violent wind slammed a door shut beneath him. He reached over and grabbed the small doll his mother had made him long ago, which he played with until his father announced him too old for such things. After that, he’d hid his toy up here.

No, nothing going on physically alarmed him, not even his emerging sexual excitement. The pastor’s warning against sinful thoughts seemed out of touch. Though he’d never say it aloud, Alexander thought that a bunch of rot.

He came to his hideaway today because of the memory of his mother’s lesson from last summer when he’d turned thirteen. Alexander curled up in a blanket, clutching his doll, warding off the freezing temperature as the blizzard covered the landscape outside the barn.

One hot summer evening after dusk, his mom had taken him out to a darkened field and spoken in a whisper.

“Your body is changing,” she had said. He blushed at the memory, embarrassed that his mother noticed such things in him. “But that’s not all. Listen closely, Alexander. It’s a dangerous time. Not everyone understands your family. They’ll come for us if we’re not careful. There’s a legacy in you that will blossom in the next year or so. I’ll teach you about it. You must promise to keep it a secret. Come only to me as the changes stir and when you have questions.”

He had nodded and said nothing else, too humiliated by the thought of talking to his mother about his body’s transition.

Since then, he had asked a number of times about this mysterious new power in him, only for her to admonish that he was not ready to learn more. If his father ever overheard, he scowled and told them to keep quiet.

There came an alarm, as if a wisp on the tail of a storm, blowing a chill into his very brain. He reached for his mother’s crystal, one she allowed him to examine from time to time if he promised to keep it hidden and never speak of its magic. The glass orb fit in the palm of his hand, smooth and clear. Peering into the crystal, he saw a vision of men: the pastor, the sheriff, and others, riding their horses hard through the storm and coming toward the farm. In the last month, images of the present had flashed into the crystal, a power he understood to come along with the other alterations to his being. No doubt his mother referenced these forces during that warm night in the field on his thirteenth birthday.

Minutes later, Alexander heard horse hooves pounding outside, and a horse whinnied as the posse came to a halt. The fact they ventured out on such a horrid night caused Alexander’s heart to race.

Alexander peeked out a crack in the barn to see the men gather together after tying their horses to a post. The family’s old dog bellowed a warning as the men approached the house.

“Goody Macbeth? Come out.”

Instead of his mother, his father came to the door and held his musket.

Alexander shivered at the cold and then ducked under a pile of hay when he heard someone climbing up the ladder toward him.

“Alexander?” his mother whispered. “Show yourself. I know you’re up here. We haven’t much time.”

Alexander sensed the urgency in her voice, so different from the gentle way she always spoke to him, even after a transgression. He saw her crawling toward him.

“Hush yourself and listen, child.” She took him in her arms as if again a babe. He thought better of resisting, despite the adult in him protesting this infantile turn of events. “You remember what I told you about the changes you’ll experience? I wanted to teach you about them at the appropriate time. I wanted to do it as my mother did for me. But they’re going to take me away.”

“I won’t let them.” Alexander reached for his own musket, but his mother held him tightly.

“Listen to me. You can’t do anything.”

Alexander frowned at the thought of cowardice. Except, he loved his mother too much to disobey. He relaxed again in her arms.

“Good. That’s a good boy. If you lash out, they’ll get you too. I need you to survive.” She leaned over and glanced out the crack in the barn for herself. He glanced over her shoulder and saw his father in a heated discussion with the men.

Only when his mother pulled him back into the hay did he notice the tear trickling down her cheek.

“These are evil times in which we live, son. Not the evil they’ll speak of, with Satan coming into their midst. No.” She shook her head. “It’s the innocent they kill. The complete misunderstanding of the power. This is what you must learn, and I’ve but a few minutes to teach you. You have power in your blood. To see the present, no matter where it may take place. To heal. To control the wind. Alexander, believe me, it’s not from a demon. It’s from your grandmother, and your great grandfather before her. Use it to protect yourself. Use it for good, no matter what you may hear otherwise.”

“Where is your wife?” They both jumped at the sheriff’s screaming voice.

“Are you a witch?” Alexander whispered to his mother. “Am I a witch?”

“Give me your hand.” Alexander held his hand out to his mother, who took it and then pressed their index fingers together. A warmth cut through the biting cold that had taken hold of every other part of his body and then seemed to course through his veins. He felt dizzy for a moment, but then a new powerful control overcame him.

His mother spoke the truth of his ability. He could sense a capacity to stop the wind, then start it again; to see from a distance what people did at the moment in a different town, as when he’d spotted the men riding toward his home through the storm; to heal the scratch on his arm from when he scraped it on a nail on his way up to the loft.

“Do you understand now?” his mother asked.

Alexander nodded, though he only half understood. He learned of his power from her touch. He realized she thought it a force for good, and thus so did he. But she never answered about being a witch.

“Tis not evil, son. No devil is involved. Survive.”

She pressed her forehead to his and held the small crystal between them. In the glass, Alexander saw a vision materialize before them. Of their father, just below them in the yard. The dog barked again. They saw the other men approach him, demanding Goody MacBeth’s imprisonment.

Then his father clutched at his arm, his eyes wide open as he slumped to his knees and fell into the snow at the feet of these intruders. Despite their earlier antagonism, they rushed to him. Only then did Alexander realize the doctor was among them. He bent over his father, then looked up to the other men and shook his head.

Alexander’s mother pulled out of their embrace, tears streaming down her face. She grabbed the musket and headed for the ladder. Alexander moved to follow but she turned and stared deeply into his eyes. “No. Survive. Sneak to the house and go to bed. Don’t let them know what you can do. Do you understand me? Survive.”

He nodded slightly and watched her descend. Alexander followed closely behind, going to the opposite end of the barn. He instinctively patted their horse on the head and then went out the door. He knew without looking his mother watched him leave.

He ran quickly around the barn and snuck into the house, hidden the entire time by the thick and swirling snow, hoping the bitter wind carried away any sound he made or swept away his footprints.

Alexander crept to the window and opened the shutter, disobeying his mother’s order to go to his bed. He could barely see the barn but the men stood close by. Again, they shouted for Goody MacBeth to come out, seemingly oblivious to his father now lying dead at their feet of their own doing.

What happened next came so quickly Alexander had no time to react, no doubt as his mother intended. The barn door swung open, and she fired the musket. It missed the men, hitting high into a tree above them. His mother was the best shot in the family. She had meant to miss.

Yet these men in their black clothing and moral purity rushed at her. Alexander felt the change in the air as she called forth the elements to come to her defense. No, not to defend herself, but to reveal her power and send them into a complete frenzy of fear and panic.

They set upon her, the brute cowards choking the life out of her. Alexander never moved from his post. Every part of his being despised these men. He wanted to attack them. He wished to kill them. He even sent forth some of this new ability and crashed a branch down at their feet.

His mother’s words, though, stopped him. Survive. She had wanted him to survive, even as she planned her own death to protect him. Though it went against every instinct in his body, Alexander left the window and crawled into his bed and feigned sleep. He had no time for mourning if he was to obey his mother’s wish.

A few moments later, the sheriff roused him. He spoke softly but with command. “Come. I’m taking you to your uncle.”

“Where are my parents?” Alexander asked this question without so much as a quiver in his voice. He knew the answer but wanted the fiend to admit it.

“No time for that. Your uncle will explain.”

Alexander attempted a few more questions of the sheriff and other men once outside, but they ignored him as they mounted their horses and propped him up behind the pastor. They soon headed through the blizzard at the same brisk pace with which they arrived, this time with Alexander as their prisoner.

As he reluctantly held tightly to the pastor, Alexander squeezed his eyes shut and saw the barn from above. His father’s body lay already half buried in the snow, his mother’s partially in the barn, the fabric of her dress fluttering in the wind. Otherwise, nothing moved. They not only killed his parents but left them unceremoniously to freeze under the heavy snow. How he despised these self-righteous men.

A rush of wind so powerful it almost knocked the pastor and him off the horse frightened Alexander, until he realized his own anger had called forth the energy. He calmed himself, again reminded that lashing out with his power would only expose him to danger.

Yet he hated even more the man who stood sneering in front of him when the pastor and sheriff rapped at the gristmill door. The other men had taken leave to go to their families. The scarred face, the husky arms and large stomach sent Alexander’s stomach into knots. He smelled too.

“What’s he doing here?” Uncle Bartholomew spat at them.

“He’s your charge now.” The pastor clutched nervously at his hat when the wind threatened to take it away. “His folks died.”

Bartholomew frowned; then his eyes lit with recognition. “You proved she’s a witch.”

The sheriff shook his head. “Not definitively. She attacked us and died in the struggle. His father died before. His heart gave out.” He pointed to Alexander. “He’s yours.”

The sheriff stalked off and told the pastor to get home, too, before he got buried in the wilderness. But the pastor lingered behind until the sheriff left. The three remained outside in the icy cold.

“You were right, of course. Goody MacBeth had the devil in her. Pay no attention to the sheriff. He deals with absolutes and the law. I deal with God. She called forth the elements just as you warned. Tis better for everyone she died.”

“I knew before all you had the courage to examine her. What about the boy?” Bartholomew twitched his head toward Alexander.

“No. I feel no sign of the devil in him.”

Bartholomew nodded and then escorted the pastor back to his horse. When he rode out of sight, his uncle shoved Alexander as hard as he could into the mill. Uncle Bartholomew lived and slept in a loft above. Alexander had visited but a few times with his mother, both of them always disgusted at the state of the place.

Alexander stumbled over the threshold but righted himself, standing rigidly as his uncle stared down at him. Bartholomew spit at his feet.

“I don’t need a ward. Especially the son of a witch. Mind you, I’ve no choice. So you’re an apprentice from this time on. Really more my slave. You got a problem with our arrangement?”

Alexander stared daggers at him. This man fought with his mother and father at every turn, demanding title to their land and accusing his sister of witchcraft. “I’m no one’s apprentice.”

Alexander stayed on his feet even after the violent backhand across his face. He tasted the blood in his mouth. Bartholomew pointed to a drafty corner in the side of the mill, where a blanket lay thrown aside. “Go sleep in the mouse shit over there. We’ll start in the morning.”